Death in Venice: Producer Graham King Talks The Tourist

Being a producer requires, among other things, the ability to put out fires. Often in unexpected places. In the case of December's The Tourist, producer Graham King (who won an Oscar for The Departed), those fires included a fleet of paparazzi on speedboats. The 48-year-old Brit explains:

The Tourist—which stars Angelina Jolie and Johnny Depp—was shot all over Venice. Don't filmmakers normally just fake it?
To be honest, we got lucky with the time of the year. Venice in wintertime isn't Venice in the summer with the tourists. We had some issues with the tides rising and floods but on the whole it worked out. Venice was so great to us. They blocked off so many canals. You wouldn't find anyone, other than the paparazzi of course.

Paparazzi on water!
Yeah. It looked a bit like that last scene in Apocalypto—where all the boats are coming in. I was very nervous at the beginning about the paparazzi telling the story of our movie, stopping helicopters or people from taking photos of the set.

As a producer, how did you react to the tabloid reports that Angelina Jolie and Johnny Depp became romantically involved?
We were all having a laugh about it. Brad was in town. He was there a lot. They hadn't met when I offered Johnny the role, so I put them in the room and there was instant chemistry, but all the conversation was about family and kids. Johnny is such a family guy and we all know how Angie feels about her family, and that's what the conversation was about. The chemistry was there—as two pros.

Is The Tourist a remake of the French film Anthony Zimmer? There seems to be some confusion there.
In this case, Angelina is looking for someone to seduce and use as a tool in Venice, and she meets this guy on the train. It's definitely based on Anthony Zimmer, but it's inspired by a bunch of films. It has a bit of the Thomas Crown Affair, North by Northwest, To Catch a Thief. I wouldn't say if you watch Anthony Zimmer it'd be shot for shot. We did the same with Infernal Affairs—which became The Departed.

The film was only just completed, and yet it's coming out quickly. This isn't an awards film, is it?
That's tough for me to answer. I made a couple of movies for the awards season—The Aviator and Gangs of New York—and then Marty [Scorsese] and I made one that we didn't make for the awards season, The Departed, and look what happened. So my new philosophy is I don't even think about it.

Why December?
It's Venice in the wintertime, it's not a summer release. It's a PG-13 movie and it's definitely a movie that you could take your 14-year-old to. What better time to do that than the holiday time? It's not dark and heavy. It's a lot of fun.

It's escapist? Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, who directed The Loves of Others—about the German Stasi—also directed The Tourist.The Lives of Others was incredible, but not very escapist.
As you know, when there's a hot new director in town they get offered everything. All I know is he passed on a lot of movies. This is the first time he's worked since The Lives of Others. If you talked to the guy you wouldn't think he'd only made one movie. His knowledge of film is second to none.

Shifting gears: You've been working on an adaptation of Hunter S. Thompson's Rum Diary, starring Johnny Depp. It was shot awhile back, but there's still no release date. What gives?
We're scheduling it for the third quarter of next year, and the only reason was because Johnny wants to really get out and promote that movie and he's working this whole year. He did our movie, then he's doing Pirates, and he doesn't wrap until the end of the year, so there was just no time for him to spend promoting the movie.

So you're not burying it?
The movie is really good. Johnny and I agreed to not just throw it out there and give it time where he can travel around and promote it.

Last question: You're producing Scorsese's next film, Hugo Cabret. How is that going?
It's a PG movie, and its in 3D, and its 1930s Paris. You give Marty 3D, and kids and dogs...